The Independent News Source
NCR on Kindle - NCR classifieds - YouTube - Twitter - Facebook - Email Alerts - RSS
PDF versionPatrick Keenan: A dose of Advent hope
by Tom Roberts on Nov. 23, 2009
20th in the series
One of the privileges of getting out and around the Catholic community reporting on The Emerging Church series has been the opportunity to meet up with a new generation of Catholics who carry a deep witness to some of the most troubled corners of the country.
Patrick Keenan is one of them. He comes out of a Franciscan formation and a serious understanding and experience of the Catholic social justice tradition.
During a visit to Hopeworks 'N Camden, an organization that helps disadvantaged youth re-imagine their lives while training them in use of new technologies, I had a long conversation with Keenan.
A slightly edited transcript of that interview can be found here.
Toward the end of the conversation, Keenan said of himself and a number of his friends:
"All of us are living out our faith in a very personal way. The problem is that then we go into the institutional church and there’s a disconnect between what’s being said in the pulpit and what’s being done in the streets. Also you look at some of the debates we’re obsessed with -- my whole thing is, no matter where you stand on abortion, which is pivotal in the Catholic Church, I think we should be pro-life.
"But for me, that means pro-life for all the years, not just natural death and natural birth. Those are the two opposite ends of life. We have to be pro-life from the moment of conception to the moment of death, meaning that when someone’s a third-grader and doesn’t have health care and is getting a substandard education, that’s shameful, that’s sinful.
"We’re committing a grave social injustice and we’re allowing that to happen. We’re being like the scribes and the Pharisees of the Old Testament; we’re worried about these heady things and when life begins and what to do and how to argue, and a theological position on it, and here’s the five points and here’s what this council says and what our history says.
"But what we’re talking about is we have to strengthen life at all of its points and we have to be there for the people that are in all their different forms of brokenness. We have to be there for the people in their addiction, we have to be there for gays and sexual minorities, we have to be there for women in oppressed situations and we have to do that by our example, our faithfulness."
NCR: February 3-16, 2012
Subscribe to NCR to get all the news and special features that aren't always available online. In this issue:
- US News: Bishops Host Conference on Immigration
Conference fields advocates' questions on law, policy
- Special Section: Deacons. Serving as parish administrator; roles of wives; and more
- Study: Black Catholics are more engaged
New study by Notre Dame researcher about parish involvement in America
He had lots more to say -- a good dose of Advent hope.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Roberts, NCR editor at large, is traveling the country reporting on church life. His e-mail address is troberts@ncronline.org. Read the full series here: In Search of the Emerging Church.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow Tom Roberts on his journey "In Search of the Emerging Church." Sign up to receive an e-mail alert when his stories are posted to this series. If you already receive e-mail alerts from NCR, click on the button that says "update my profile."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
be there now with the illegal
be there now
with the illegal immigrant
the AIDS victim
the naked
the homeless
the hungry
the jobless
the poor
the imprisoned
the outcast
the rejected
the excommunicant
make there your here
I am Who Am there
God bless you, Patrick
God bless you, Patrick Keenan! What a perceptive young man. And he's walking the walk. Unfortunately, with the Church the way it is, he'll probably get some hierarchical grief for his statements. To Patrick and all the others who see and feel the disconnect: When you're ready, the Episcopal Church will welcome you with open arms.
I don't. Whenever abortion
I don't. Whenever abortion is legalized, the crime rate drops significantly within 12-16 years. Poor people make poor babies who commit crimes and who cost everyone a lot of money, especially their own families. The poor can't afford as many children. Reducing the number of births per woman increases family income, life outcomes (including higher education) and reduces crime rates and rates of incarceration.
"don't. Whenever abortion is
"don't. Whenever abortion is legalized, the crime rate drops significantly within 12-16 years. Poor people make poor babies who commit crimes and who cost everyone a lot of money, especially their own families. The poor can't afford as many children. Reducing the number of births per woman increases family income, life outcomes (including higher education) and reduces crime rates and rates of incarceration."
Mien Fuherer, we should take more direct action. Perhaps abortion should be encouraged and promoted amongst "undesirables".
In addition, the mentally retarded are burdensome financially to society as well. Are they truly worthy of life? Is there a "FINAL SOLUTION" to these problems?
Needless to say this is the same type of NAZI eugenics ideaology that Margaret Sanger, the foundress of Planned Parenthood promoted.
As a Jew and an avid reader
As a Jew and an avid reader of NCR I am always dismayed when otherwise intelligent, sensitive, human Christians such as Patrick Keenan find it necessary to slam the scribes and Pharisees without knowing (outside of the polemic remarks contained in the New Testament) what these people actually said and wrote and how they lived their lives. The Pharisees, scribes and their rabbinic descendants were much concerned with justice, interpersonal kindness and the ungoing unfolding of God's revelation in the world. Many of the disagreements between Jesus and his followers and the Pharisaic community in the New Testament were actually part of a lengthy conversation among rabbis and their followers that began after the return from the Babylonian Exile (about 500 BCE) and continued for about thousand years of Jewish history. At the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had only been around about 200 years and, like Jesus, were on the outs with the Herodians and the Romans who controlled the area politically. (N.B., Mr. Keenan: The Pharisees do not exist in the pages of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.) A century after the death of Jesus, the leading rabbis/descendants of the Pharisees were also persecuted and horribly murdered by the Romans for supporting a man who claimed to be the Messiah, and this event is recounted in a short service that is part of the liturgy for Yom Kippur. Read that account (there are some very good English translations), along with "Pirkei Avot/Sayings of the Fathers" --- a short collection of aphorisms and sayings that is part of the Talmud---- and see what you think of the Pharisees after that. If you want to disdain the Jews of the time of Jesus who were not his followers, so be it, but do it with knowledge, not perjudicial ignorance.
This page was indexed by
This page was indexed by Google and added to blogs search 2 Feb 2009 9:15:31 GMT.
Google cache: http://google.com/search?q=cache:ncronline.org/blogs/search-emerging-church/patrick-keenan-dose-advent-hope&ei=AFQjCNHajN_OX0kgxzx7UGA1yBfsEX VIds
Webroot informer.
Post new comment